The Public Health debt is revealed to be over RD $7.0 billion

SANTO DOMINGO. The Minister of Public Health, Altagracia Guzmán Marcellino, met yesterday with the financial and administrative personnel of the Ministry and it turned out that there exists a consolidated debt of more than RD $7.0 billion.

A very reliable source revealed this information and reported that over the next few days there will be important changes in the Ministry, the current center of attention, after the deaths of 11 children at the Robert Reid Cabral Children’s Hospital which ended with the firings of Freddy Hidalgo Nuñez as the Minister of Public health, and of Doctor Rosa Nieves Paulino from the post of hospital director.

Guzmán Marcellino said that she is discussing with the financial team everything related with the commitments of payments and the budget programming of the institution and as soon as she has available the complete information regarding the issue, she will share it with the media and with society in a general sense.

The financial commitment includes public hospitals, medications, as well as different suppliers to which the last minister had to resort to use, given the lack of economic resources, the result of a low budget.

The situation dates from several years ago, so that when Hidalgo Nuñez assumed his post in 2012, he reported at that time that he found a debt of more than RD $1.0 billion from his predecessor Bautista Rojas Gomez.